Dead Annie
by transientxsmile
Summary: A girl is showed an entire new perspective of someone after a visit from you know who. Please R&R !
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own any works of Jhonen Vasquez, unfortunately. I do however own Dead Annie and any associating characters.

Chapter One

The club was dark, smoky, and the brick walls were old and crumbling. There were hardly any people their own age in the audience, mostly guys in their late forties, sporting facial hair and wearing tweed. Warehouse 49 was one of those places where the spooky people came to read bad poetry and smoke clove cigarettes, where incense burned on every table and the only light came from the neon sign above the bar advertising beer. It wasn't the most clean, or reputable of places to perform at. The stage itself shoddily nailed together out of stained, splintered wood, maybe light mahogany, and the curtains surrounding it were moth-eaten and battered red velvet.

All in all, not the most impressive place for the fledging band Dead Annie and the Wednesdays to start off with their first performance. But who was going to employ an almost all-chick punk band to serenade their customers? At the time, this was the best that they could do.

Dead Annie herself, the leader of the band once upon a time before Devi had come along, slouched over the microphone at the foot of the stage, glowering at the people in the club. Her black hair was long and hung about her face in an attempt to hide it. Her hair had no shine to it; it was an absence of color, pure nothingness. Her skin wasn't the pale that you would expect; it had a pinkish-cream tint to it that made her look healthy, shiny and extremely alive, despite her stage name. There were impossibly long, fake eyelashes framing her green eyes, and her eyeliner was smudged and sharp. Her Violent Femmes t-shirt was ripped at the sleeves and grungy, one of her many trademarks, and her long black skirt dusted the floor. Her teeth were straight and white from years of torment from braces in high school. Her high-heeled boots looked like they were bought at Wal-Mart. She was pretty, with her full cupid's bow mouth and thin, frail body, but not beautiful. There was something poisonous in her face that begged at you to stay away from her. Like she wouldn't hesitate to slit your throat if you were too nice to her.

Since when did the drummer become the leader of the band? Wasn't it, by tradition, the vocalist or lead guitarist? Dead Annie and the Wednesdays was comprised mainly of Larry (the bass guitarist), Shooter Girl (electric guitarist), Devi (drummer, as already mentioned), Devi's strange friend Tenna (tambourine and synthesizer), and, of course, Dead Annie on vocals. Originally, she had been in charge of the band- writing songs, telling everyone else what to do, and suggesting new directions or sounds. Then Shooter Girl had ended their search for a drummer by bringing in Devi.

Shooter Girl was a tall, willowy Asian girl in her mid-twenties, viciously beautiful and always grimly serious. She hardly ever smiled, and when she did, she had a quirky sense of humor. She was nicknamed for the computer games she played where the main mission was basically to kill everyone else playing before they got to you first. Her favorites were Quake and Doom.

She also had weird taste in friends, examples being Devi and Tenna. One day she brought the two of them to a band meet and that's where it all began. Or ended really, at least for Dead Annie. From that moment on, Devi was the natural leader, the one that everyone looked to for help regarding everything band-related. Even Larry loved her, and he was a balding gay man in his early forties who hated everything but money and his iPod.

Dead Annie tried to tell herself that of course she should be jealous of Devi, it was natural to be envious of someone who had taken her place. She tried to put it behind her, tried to be friendly to Devi and put this behind her.

Yet…they were so different that it was near impossible. For one, Devi was one of those crazy starving artist people who always had clay and paint embedded in her nails and on her clothes. She even talked to herself! On several occasions, Dead Annie had overheard Devi muttering the word "sickness" to herself along with "stop it" and "not now". Secondly, Devi was a breathtakingly beautiful woman, vivid purple hair pulled up into a ponytail and dark, artsy clothes. The only thing that Dead Annie had in common with her rival was her green eyes, and Dead Annie's were provided courtesy of contact lenses.

Lastly, Dead Annie hated how angry Devi was, all the time. She contrasted sharply with her weird friend Tenna who was always excited about something and who ran around bopping everyone with her freaky little squeaky skeleton thing. Dead Annie wasn't the most cheerful person to be around, but she was known as the eternally amused voice of reason. Most of the time she was at least pleasant to be around, unlike little miss perfect.

Trying not to think about it, she stood on stage, smirking at the audience. She introduced the band, and without further ado, launched into their cover of the song "Early Sunsets over Monroeville." Sometime while she was singing the chorus, growling "...if I had the guts to put this to your head, but would anything matter, if you're already dead..." into the microphone like she had something to prove, she happened to look towards the back of the room, at the crowded bar.

One guy stood out, someone looking a little older than her. Maybe he was even the same age, it was hard to tell. He was tall and rail thin, his clothes all in black and blue, colored like his hair that standing up in spikes away from his face. He reminded Dead Annie of a bruise, or a crow. And those were some beautiful boots, with steel cloved toes and buckles going up them. Just beautiful. She knew how to appreciate quality when she saw it. He was pale, like he stayed underground and hardly ever came up for air. A sneer was fixed on his face as he made eye contact with her, and she froze, tripping over her next line. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice her mess-up. Dead Annie looked away from him, biting at her lip worriedly. She had a feeling that she had seen him around before, but where? Wouldn't she remember a face like that, a handsome one with eyes of stone? With the icy blue eyes of a killer?

She finished her set and got off stage amid minor clapping from the schmucks around her. The image of the creepy boy stayed with her as she helped get equipment into their band van parked in the adjacent alley. Where HAD she seen him before?


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the works of Jhonen Vasquez, though I wish that I was that talented. Dead Annie is mine though, all mine! Mwa ha ha!

Chapter Two

Dead Annie had the strangest dream that she could ever recall having. In this dream, she was suddenly blacking out, then "waking up" in a tiny dark room with the skinny boy from the club sitting in a chair across from her, staring at her. In the dream, she tried to move, only to find that she was chained to the dirty, maroon stained wall behind her, stuck in a half-slouching, half-sitting position. Actually, after she had looked around, she realized that all of the walls and parts of the bare wood floor were painted with what looked like dried blood. There was a dull pian thudding in her skull, and she thought that she remembered being in the lobby of her apartment when something had hit her, hard, in the back of her head. As she looked at the knife shining in the boy's hand, looking sinister even with its smiley-face hilt, it occurred to Dead Annie for the first time that maybe this wasn't a dream. But that was impossible...wasn't it? She hadn't done anything really terrible to anyone. She wasn't even pretty enough to be stalked by some crazy sex fiend. So, what was she doing there?

She looked over the guy staring at her. He looked even worse than the first time that she had seen him. His blue eyes were bloodshot to the point of being almost completely red, and the bags under his eyes seemed to have multiplied. He was pale, but not as much as he had seemed under the harsh lights of the stage. His shirt was black with a stylized logo of a "Z" and a question mark, the sleeves striped black and white. The tattered shorts that he wore were striped too, but you couldn't see any of his legs past that because his steel-cloved boots were so high. His blackish-blue hair was standing up in bent little spikes, very trendy by normal standards. He was tapping the blade of his knife against the side of his chair as he sat crosslegged. The sound of metal hitting wood disconcerted her, made her even more panicky than she had been when it had hit her that she wasn't imagining this.

Finally she spoke. When she did, her voice came out disoriented, like she just woke up from a long sleep. "Who are you?" Dead Annie pulled briefly at the cuffs chaining her to the wall, but they were strong, not yielding to her weak efforts. What were they made of, steel?

"Johnny C. But seeing as how you'll be staying a guest here for a long time, you may call me Nny." He sent her a grotesque smile, like he was a good host offering someone an appetizer laced with cyanide. He uncrossed his legs and stretched them out on either side of his chair, looking bored.

"Oh. Um...this isn't a dream by any chance, is it?" she asked hopefully after a pause, offering a timid smile in return.

"Nope. Not that I know of. Unless you're under the opinion that life itself is one big hallucination, a nightmare that you never awake from. But it wouldn't help you even if it was." He hesitated and then inquired, looking interested, "Do you usually have dreams like this?"

She shrugged, her shoulders barely raising. "I used to. When I was younger." Dead Annie stopped and looked at him. "What am I doing here? Why am I...chained up like this?" She was hoping that this was all some kind of elaborate joke, maybe orchestrated by Shooter Girl. This seemed like something she would pay someone to do, maybe to get back at Dead Annie for yelling at her for taking too long of a guitar solo. Or would she? This whole thing seemed pretty terrible, horrible enough that she couldn't really imagine anyone doing this to her.

"You don't know what you're doing here?" Johnny asked, smiling suddenly. "Hmm. Well, in all actuality, you're here because I"m going to do you a favor. From what I've seen, you've been living the same, dull, trivial life, not going anywhere or thinking past the little box that is your mind. You're like a poison, lashing out at anyone who comes near you and acting like it doesn't bother you when people leave you. I was like you once. I got past it, working out my internal anger and repressed emotions with kills. You'll-"

Dead Annie interrupted, feeling hysteria rising in her, threatening to erupt from her throat in a scream. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? "So, you mean that you're going to kill me? You're going to kill me because I don't make friends easily and I can be a bitch sometimes? This is ridiculous. This whole situation is stupid. You're insane. Just let me go."

Johnny stood up from his chair, his cheshire cat grin getting wider as he crouched in front of her. He replied quietly, "No, I'm not going to end your life. Not yet. Like I said, I'm going to help you. I'm going to help you understand, understand the world that you live in a little better. First lesson...appreciate life. Appreciate pain."

The knife that he held in his hand flashed out, slashing out across her cheek, creating a vertical slash under her eye. A second later he cut open an identical one on the other side of her face. Dead Annie couldn't see how much damage was done, but she could feel the hot blood, _her_ blood, running down onto her neck, soaking through the top of her shirt. She was too shocked to scream, her anguished moan was a late reaction to the pain that was bolting through her head.

More cuts and slashes followed around her eyes, going as far back as to the tips of her ears and around the bridge of her nose. A scream ripped out of her mouth, a brief short burst that scared her more than anything that he could have done. Johnny just rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"There's no one around to help you, you may as well not waste your breath. You'll thank me for this later," he said, like a parent scolding a child who tried to touch a hot stove. He continued on with his work, taking his time, sometimes making long slashes and other times making tiny curved ones. It was clear that he was making some kind of design. Blood was beginning to drip down into her eyes, making all that she saw red. A few drops fell onto her tongue when she screamed, making the taste of copper fill her senses.

She gasped at each new cut, at each new jolt of pain. "Please, god...please...Nny...whoever you are...just stop. I'll do anything...just stop." Her tears were mixing in with the blood pooling on her face. Salt and copper. How fun this was. Dead Annie felt like she was going to vomit. She could actually feel the bile rising in her throat. This was great. Just great. She was being tortured by the emo guy from hell for no apparent reason and now she was going to throw up on him.

He ceased with the agony-causing for a second, and smiled at her again. "You know, instead of screaming, you could sing something. Maybe to distract you. I wouldn't normally suggest something like this but I really do have a headache and I don't think that I can stand any more shrieky noises." The smiling dagger dripped crimson. Dead Annie almost passed out just looking at it, the mixture of steel and blood, blood from her body. How much blood had she lost so far? It felt like enough to kill her. It probably wasn't, but by now she was almost wishing that it was.

"Sing?" Dead Annie repeated, trying to look at him intently to see if he was serious through the dried blood and hair sticking to her eyes. "You want me to sing something? God...how disturbed are you?!"

Johnny shrugged, continuing with his cutting. "I have to admit, you have a beautiful voice. You have so much talent and you're wasting it away, living your petty life with your petty ways."

She recoiled from him, trying to jerk away, but he grabbed her chin with his free hand and held her in place with a death grip. Damn, he was strong. Stronger than you would expect from a skinny guy like that. Before she even realized that it was over, he let go of her suddenly and stood up, wiping his bloody hands on his shorts.

"All done." He looked rather pleased with himself. "I'll go get a mirror or something so you can see how I did. Tell me what you think, okay? Don't hold anything back." That said, he turned on his heel and left the room through the open doorway.

This was the first time that she had been left on her own since she'd been here. It was obvious that her thoughts immediately turned to escape. Dead Annie pulled at the manacles binding her wrists, hissing with pain and frustration. Beads of sweat slid down her neck and face, mingling with the blood. Johnny came into the room, whistling to himself contentedly. The knife that he had held was gone, and in its place was a cracked hand mirror. He knelt in front of her again, so that she could see her face in the reflective glass.

"Oh my god..." she whispered to herself. Even through the crusting maroon around her face, she could see the decorative red swirls and vines moving along the upper half of her head. A little flower blossomed, giving birth to smaller buds, around her right eyelid. It looked so artistiscally done, like a henna tattoo gone wrong. She'd have the scars of this forever. Forever. If she could get out of here, she wouldn't care. Marks like these would be things that she wouldn't brag about, but would show up nicely in the police report photos. "They're intense...but did you have to do that to my face?"

Once again, Johnny shrugged. "The face is the canvas of the human soul, Annie dear. I'm just making yours a bit less generic. Like I said earlier, you'll thank me for it later." He stood upright, and took the mirror away from her as she nearly dropped it on the floor with her clumsy fingers. "I'll come back later after you sleep some and I'll wash off your face, give you something to eat. Until then, good night. And be prepared for lesson two tomorrow."

Then he left, leaving her to the darkness and her increasingly desperate thoughts.

And she couldn't believe that it bothered her, especially at a time like this (a _situation_ like this), but...why hadn't he called her Dead Annie? Everyone else did, ever since she left high school, and if he had followed her around and heard her name said, why didn't he call her that?

What **_was_** his malfunction?


End file.
